Ajay Kumar Sood, the Indian government’s principal scientific adviser, said recommendations from an expert committee to devise a framework for artificial intelligence have been submitted to the government and will soon be put out for public consultation.
The committee was constituted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and was chaired by Prof Sood.
The report will be released soon and a lightweight but effective set of rules to regulate AI in India is expected, Sood said on the sidelines of an event held by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.
“AI can be disruptive. It’s not always the case, but AI can generate compelling text, photorealistic images, deepfakes and more that are harmful to democratic institutions. We are seeking the right balance between regulation and innovation,” Sood said.
He said different governments across the world are trying to regulate AI in different ways. “The European model has come up with regulations that can disrupt start-ups and innovators. Other governments have adopted self-regulation. There are different models and we need to see which one works best for India,” he added.
He emphasized a “techno-legal approach” to AI and pointed to a set of standardized risk assessment protocols by industry as a principle of self-discipline.
It remains to be seen whether a fully self-regulatory approach, similar to what the government has implemented in the fintech industry, will be adopted.
Regulation should be under human oversight, not entirely system-driven, Sood said.
In January, Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister’s Council of Economic Advisors, said India should adopt a Complex Adaptive Systems, or CAS, based approach to regulating AI. In a research paper, Sanyal wrote that a dedicated AI regulator was needed, which would function as a “dynamic task force with broad mandates.”
